Thursday, July 30, 2009

Saying good bye to another friend. Not nearly as difficult as saying good bye to Tuley but a rather melancholy day no less.

In April of 1999 I drove to Westford Vermont to pick up an old Land Rover that I had bought sight unseen. It was offered for sale by a very reputable Land Rover company called Rovers North. It had recently been decommissioned by the Britsh Ministry of Defense. Rovers North brought several of these trucks over to the US in the late 90’s. This is what it looked like on the way back to Springfield. Several months of sweat, some blood and a few tears and I had a pretty decent looking truck to play around in.

I didn’t drive the Rover much anymore and it was time for someone else to enjoy it. Ironically it is going back to New England. It was purchased on E-Bay by a fellow in Nashua, NH.

So with that I am now down to just one single Land Rover. This is the least amount of Rovers I have owned in sometime and Erin seems to be OK with that. I’m retiring the eleven year old Discovery with about 178,xxx miles on the ticker from daily driver duties.

The Discovery is going to receive the much coveted garage space and will undergo a slow mechanical restoration.

And finally this now resides on my half of the driveway. Toyota Tacoma Off-Road package with the electronic locking rear differential and tow package with the integrated engine oil and transmission coolers. For the first mod I have ordered WeatherTech liners for the floor.

2 comments:

I have many good memories of riding around in that old rover - on and off road. It never failed to catch people's attention, and they called it everything under the sun. Jeep? Land Cruiser? What IS that thing? That truck was around before I was, and I will miss it too.